


Rowland

by tronjolras



Category: Jane Eyre - All Media Types, Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: A little angst, Baby Rochester, F/M, First Person, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 23:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4806665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tronjolras/pseuds/tronjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Once, my dear Edward theorized that there was a red string between us that bound us together. And though I had very keenly experienced the same anguish at the thought of us parting and still do now, I entertained the notion once again. A very slim white thread, not unlike a spider's silken spool, fastened to my ribs and then to this tiny little thing in my arms."</p><p>Jane considers parenthood as she watches over her newborn son during his first night on earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rowland

I sat at my post, watching his little chest rise and fall. There was no danger, he was of the healthy sort that cried loudly the moment he could and squirmed when anyone attempted to bind his little limbs into a swaddle. 

Now he slept as I kept my vigil. They both slept, Edward in the next room over. His furrowed brow might finally be relaxed again. Since I entered my confinement, he had been increasingly concerned. He was downright distraught when the midwife did not let him see me directly after the birth. A vain little part of me was glad for it. I must have looked a mess then, sweaty and tired. I felt much better now, washed and dressed in warm, dry clothing. When Edward did meet our son, he had looked at us both with such a remarkable tenderness, kissed me, and called me the apple of his eye.

I leaned back in the plush chair I had asked to be moved into the nursery, for a moment just like this. I sat in the shadows as moonlight illuminated the cradle holding my most precious love. I liked the silence and the dark. It calmed me.

A rustling from the hall reminded me of the days I thought I lived a ghost story. I was immediately apprehensive, though my sense told me it was nothing but the characteristic creaks of this old manor. 

The baby's cry drew me back to the world. I sprung out of the chair and hoisted him into my arms before he woke the entire household.  
Once, my dear Edward theorized that there was a red string between us that bound us together. And though I had very keenly experienced the same anguish at the thought of us parting and still do now, I entertained the notion once again. A very slim white thread, not unlike a spider's silken spool, fastened to my ribs and then to this tiny little thing in my arms. 

Something in the hall made a noise again.

Perhaps it was reckless of me to investigate with babe in arm, but as I imagined all sorts of wild things in the night, my heart quickened its pulse. I opened the door and found a great masquerade of shadows obscuring the corridor. I gave way to juvenile terror only for a moment, until I saw an achingly familiar profile amongst the cacophony and realized that the active mass of shadows was caused by a single candle perched on a candlestick as my dear Edward made a midnight sojourn to the nursery.

With an easy mind, I went back to sit in the chair where I had kept my vigil. While the child was not asleep, he had stopped his tears and now stared out the window. I showed him the moon, full and bright. I pointed out the stars bedecking the night sky. 

Edward stayed at the doorway to the nursery for a time. I imagined he watched us with an affectionate smile, but when I turned, the candle's flickering light told me he was crying. "Oh Jane," was all he said when I saw him. His gruff voice drew our son's attention and he stared in curiosity at the broad man before us. "You share with him your spirit for inquiry," Edward continued, quite resolved to ignore his leaking eyes. "It will only get him into trouble. He will find his fae kin and get into magnificent scrapes in their fae land."

I smiled at the old accusation buried in his words. He ventured his way into the room and I vacated the chair. "Nonsense, Janet," he admonished. "You must sit and rest still. You are not yet recovered, I am convinced."

"Sit, Edward," I said in a stern tone eerily similar to the one I used to hush our son.

He sighed and sat on the chair, placing the candlestick on the window sill. "Apple of my eye, in honesty I—" I had interrupted him by sitting on his lap (a very intimate position, dear reader, but not unfamiliar to us) and leaning back onto his chest. I held the baby higher so that he could see his son's wide black eyes, so familiar to him, "Oh," he repeated quietly in the same note of wonder as was in the baby's expression as the child beheld his mother, now transformed into a two-headed parental beast. He began to cry again. I felt Edward tense and his chest constrict. "I'm sorry Jane," I heard him mutter quietly by my ear as I calmed the child. Edward was hurt and I hated that I knew why. With his scarred face and cloudy eyes, it was easy for some cruel people to call him a monster. And what were children afraid of if not monsters? But I promise you, reader, that our son would never fear his father in that way, and offer assurance that the baby, only hours old, was not reacting so to his father's appearance, but to whatever little things upset newborns so incessantly. If I had to imagine it, I would see a worrisome fairy that perched on a baby's shoulder and was easily overtaken by fits of concern for its charge. In this case, our son's supernatural guard whispered into the baby's ear that he was hungry and I promptly fed him. Tentatively, Edward began stroking the black mass of hair our son was born with. After the baby was properly sated, my slow rocking and Edward's gentle touch lulled him once again back to sleep.

I removed myself from the chair to return the baby to the cradle and as I was about to suggest that Edward retire, he pulled me back onto his lap. "I love you," he murmured just before kissing my cheek. I delighted in the sentence, rarely were his words ever that simple. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I was content to curl against him. "I sent for Adele," he said slowly. "She will arrive tomorrow, I am sure." He continued to dole out little bits of information evenly and pedantically (a quality he had seemed to acquire with his age). I suspected he was attempting to lull me to sleep like we had done the child, but I was eager to know the happenings of Ferndean and Millcote while I was preoccupied with lying in.

When he had exhausted the news and not me, we sat in silence. I could sense his apprehension, or perhaps it was my own, or it belonged to us both. A shared knot of anxiety that drew us even closer together. I felt it as he held me closer and pressed a kiss on the top of my head. "He is so perfect, like a true child of myth, so strong and hearty," he began again, my communicative Edward. "You could not bear a better son, Janet. No woman in the British Empire could, I am certain." Our son turned in his sleep. Involuntarily, I twitched to go to him, but Edward held me in place by my waist. "Let him sleep, and be at ease," he suggested and then continued his monologue. "There is only one thing I can imagine that he lacks." I felt the prick of motherly pride. "Be calm, Janet, I meant no reproof. It is just that we have given him everything within our power to give, except a sweet Christian name that will both suit the darling babe he is now and the gentleman we wish him to become. Do you not agree, Mother Rochester?" he finished with the playful name. 

"I have never had anything to name, Edward. I do not know the conventions of such things." I answered plainly. "Is there some protocol by which we should give our son a certain name? I can only remember in very vague terms that my uncle Reed was named John and that his son assumed the same name. Even Bessie Leaven named her first son after the father, Robert."

"No world needs two Edward Rochester's," he said with an immediacy I did not question, nor did I object. "I want him to be named Rowland," he said plainly.  
"For your brother?" I asked.

"The Rochester wealth is not as old as some, but it seemed always be ruled by a Rowland. My brother, my father, his before. An Edward does not belong. Thus, ere long, the Rochester family will be righted again—in at least that aspect." I looked at our little son drenched in moonlight and thought Rowland to my self over and over. I liked it well. "Now to bed, Jane Eyre (sometimes he still called me by that name) and I will sit here and wait until the sunrise." He appealed to me with upturned brow. "Do not be afraid, my most precious Jane, Rowland will be well without your for a few hours yet." 

I stood up and looked into our son's cradle once more. "Good night Rowland," I wished almost silently. I tarried as long as I could at the cradle, but as I always had, I felt Edward's gaze bore into me, so I brushed my lips against Rowland's forehead and turned back to my husband for a lazy goodnight kiss. He caught my hand as I turned to leave and looked up at me with a loving expression. Then he repeated the question he had asked me so many times on the night of our first engagement, and so many times since: "Are you happy Jane?"

"Yes," I told him without a whit of hesitation. "Oh yes, Edward, I am exceedingly so." I left the nursery and though I thought I would be sleepless with worry, I found myself exhausted by the time I slipped into my nightgown and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.


End file.
